[ { "id": 208385, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "POLITICIZATION OF CHINESE CRAFT ORGANIZATION\n\n93\n\nwould hold a meeting. Attendance usually ran upwards of twenty people and various items of business to which the union had to see were dealt with, such as: a response to a letter from the Registry of Trade Unions of the Hong Kong government; preparations for the October 1st celebration; discussion of the wage raise to be demanded and ultimately attained in 1973, planning of a picnic which was to take place on the birthday of the historic founder of the carpentry and carving trades, Lupan (discussed below), etc.\n\nOn occasion a representative from the Federation of Trade Unions would sit in on a meeting to see how the union was doing, bringing with him or her news of significance to the labor movement in general for workers to discuss, and these discussions were usually fairly lively, most participants doing their best to give a favorable impression of the workings of their union.\n\nOnce a month the union receives copies of a Federation of Trade Union newspaper entitled Hong Kong Worker (*1st) in which various sorts of articles concerning the working class in Hong Kong appear. There are also articles about China, explanations of current policy initiatives, sports news, a regular women's column and political cartoons as well. On March 29, 1973 I was invited to sit in on a discussion of the articles in the latest issue. The headline article concerned the death of several construction workers who had fallen from scaffolding during the construction of the new Connaught Center Building on Hong Kong island. A free-ranging discussion followed the reading aloud of the article, with those workers who could read with facility taking turns reading successive paragraphs. Industrial safety and industrial accidents in Hong Kong were the main topic of the discussion and the question of how this topic applied to workers in the art carved furniture industry was raised and discussed as well. Lest one think the extrapolation to the furniture industry a bit strained, Labor Department figures for industrial accidents for the first four months of 1973 \"were the worst in Hong Kong's history, with an average of one death and 70 injuries every day\" (Hong Kong Standard, June 29, 1973).\n\nA high degree of class identity was expressed by the workers during the discussion and the question of industrial safety linked to relations between workers and capitalists, the drive for profit, lack of concern for workers' welfare, etc. The sessions occur on a regular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208737, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 194, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n167\n\ntake place at the home or in ancestral temples, less frequently in \"bone temples\". But secondly, community temples are not intended to offer funeral rites: their whole significance lies elsewhere. Funeral rites from very early times on used to be a family or clan affair and had no direct relationship with the community as a whole. With the coming of Buddhism and the growing success of their eschatology, monks started to take over or at least participate in funeral services. The author has overlooked a very simple alternate explanation: the proverb may have been coined at a point in history where the Ullambana ritual (or hungry ghost festival) was purely Buddhist, whereas the li-tou from its inception was a Taoist creation and in earlier times only performed by Taoist priests. Later changes occurred, but the saying continues.\n\nOn p. 175 author states that (Buddhist) \"bone temples” “cannot be used as a site for the popular chiao festivals\": the gods are not willing to descend in a death-polluted location (p. 176). This may not be the true reason. Those \"bone temples\" are not real temples (they are pagodas) and certainly not community temples: therefore they obviously will not do as sites for the chiao festival which is the community celebration par excellence. It seems to me, however, that Buddhist temples are organizing great rituals parallel to or equivalent to the chiao, which they call ta fa hui (great dharma meeting). This is a substitute ritual for their own Buddhist devotees, and a ritual for the living at that.\n\nOn p. 180 the author distinguishes two groups of worshippers in Buddhist temples, so-called the “living” and the “dead”. (As long as quotation marks are used, these expressions although not ideal, can be accepted, but on p. 182 the author speaks of dead worshippers, without the marks). The two groups do not meet at the same times and participate in different rituals. This whole passage is informative but does not clarify or further substantiate the author's thesis. The so-called “dead worshippers” do not belong to the real congregation of the temple: they place the urn or tablet once and for all, often to rid themselves of an awkward responsibility. The monks have received their lump sum payment and do not expect them back therefore they are almost forgotten on purpose. The \"living worshippers\" are cultivated because they provide the regular temple income.\n\nOn p. 185, the author speaks of the \"Taoist\" Matsu deity. This is a wrong identification as author should be aware of. Further", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208847, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "208\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nTseng Lan Shue an on lung ceremony every thirty. Sha Kok Mei also had a regular ta tsiu.\n\n* Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 31.7.81, Mr. Chau T'in Shang 9.7.81. The ceremony, taken more as a game of fun, was known as \"puk sha ngau tsai\".\n\n49 Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, Mr. Lei 9.7.81.\n\n60 Before the War, puppet shows were performed at the earthgods' festivals at Sai Kung Market and Pak Tam Chung, and the ta tsiu at Pak Kong and Pak Sha Wan. With the exception of Pak Kong's ta tsiu, which was held once every ten years, these were annual celebrations. See ints. Mr. Kong Hei 21.6.81, Mr. Chau T'in Shang 7.5.81, 9.7.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81, Mr. Lok Tsau On 21.6.81.\n\n\"1 See, for instance, descriptions of the feasts in int. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, feast at grave worship in int. Mr. Cheung T'o 15.6.81, at wedding ceremony in int. Mr. Tsang 25.6.81.\n\n52 For general comments see Mr. Tse Wing 9.6.81, Mrs. Lau 21.6.81, Mrs. Tse 21.6.81, Mrs. Cheung née Wan 26.6.81, and for samples of these songs, Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, Mr. Ip Wan 2.7.81.\n\n53 C. Fred Blake, \"Death and abuse in marriage laments: the curse of Chinese brides\", Studies in Asian Folklore 37, pp. 13-33 quotes extensively from a text of Hakka songs found in Sai Kung. The Oral History Project has found records of these songs in other villages, but not in Sai Kung itself.\n\n5 Hong Kong Government Administrative Report 1913, p. N 16.\n\n56 From the Hong Kong Government Administrative Report 1922, the Hong Kong Government Administrative Report 1923, and interview reports, schools were found in Sai Kung Market (Sung Chen and two others) and the following villages (names of schools in brackets): Mang Kung Uk (Ts'ung Kong), Pak Tam Chung, Wo Mei, Ho Chung (Tsik Shin), Tseung Kwan O (Lap Tak), Yim Tin Tsai, Tai Po Tsai, Sha Kok Mei (Yuk Yin), Tai Wan (Sui Ying), Tai No, Nam Wai, Pak Kong (Man Shang), Tai Long, Wong Chuk Yeung, Pan Long Wan, Sheung Yeung (Ling Wan), Ta Ho Tun, Pak Ngah, Kau Lau Wan, Kau Sai, Seung Sz Wan (Wai San), Hang Hau (Man Uen), Tseng Lan Shue (Lung T'ang), Tan Ka Wan (Shung Ming), Yung Shu O, Ko Tong, Tai Wan Tau, Wong Mo Ying, Ma Yau Tong, Man Yee Wan, Nam Shan, Che Keng Tuk, Pak Kong Au, Ma Nam Wat, Siu Hang Hau.\n\n56\n\nInts. Mr. Lok Shang 21.5.81, Mr. Chan Kei Shang 28.5.81, Mr. Cheung To 29.5.81, Mr. Chan Shau 19.6.81, Mr. Uen Chan Wan 22.6.81, Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 20.5.81, Mr. Lam Kaap Shau 8.6.81, Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81.\n\n57 Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81, Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 20.5.81, Mr. Kong Hei 21.6.81 went to Sung Chen. Mr. Wong went from Sung Chen to the Roman Catholic School in Wai Chau and then Canton. Mr. Cheng Chung T'ing 21.5.81 went to the Yau Ma Tei Government School, Mr. Uen Chiu Ming 13.2.81 went to the Tai Po Teachers Training School, but did not graduate. The Chans of Ho Chung sent their sons to Nam Tau or Canton; see Mr. Chan P'aang Hing 29.5.81. Mr. Chau T'in Shang's elder brother was educated in Canton, see int. 3.6.81. See also int. Father George Carusso 20.5.81.\n\n58 Mr. Wong Ts'ing 23.6.81, Mr. Tsang Yau 23.6.81, Mrs. Tse née Lau 24.6.81, Mr. Lau Wan Hei 25.6.81, Mrs. Yung née Wan 2.7.81, Madam Chiu I Mooi 18.7.81, Mrs. Yau née Tse 22.7.81, Mr. Chan T'aai", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208968, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "98\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nwords. The Ch'ing-ming festival, now usually seen as a festival to commemorate the dead, was in its origin a celebration of spring: all the fires, including the kitchen fires, had to be extinguished in the country; only cold food was used for two or three days. On the third day, new fire was struck, and the spring festival taking place was called “pure” and “bright”: the new fire was pure since taken directly from the source of light, the sun, and bright since it symbolized the growing strength of sunlight that was on the increase after the equinox. This interpretation of the Ch'ing-ming makes better sense than the more usual and popular explanation.14 Although the old name was retained, the meaning of the festival shifted at a later time, probably due to Buddhist influence.\n\nDe Groot sees this relighting of the fires in ancient China as a parallel with the Easter festival and with similar celebrations taking place in the ancient world, where every year the god's ritual death was followed by his resurrection:\n\nAll those legends speaking of death and resurrection, all those feasts passing from mourning to the most exuberant joy have all had one only purpose: the symbolical reproduction of the history of the sun's light and of the phases through which it passes on earth. What one worshipped was this sacred fire of Nature, which is the soul, the life of the universe, and which finds itself engaged in an ever recurring struggle against the god of Darkness, of Death, which exerts itself incessantly to obstruct it in its dispensation of benefits to man. The most significant of all the phases in this solar cycle is the one when the sun reaches the spring equinox, celebrates its victory over darkness and the days grow longer than the nights. The whole earth then starts a new life.15\n\nWhereas in many societies the god's death and resurrection was thus ritually enacted, the Chinese example is characterized by a more rationalistic, naturalistic tendency: the object of the cult was not a particular god for whom a new name was created, but was the sun itself, as one of the heavenly bodies without strong supernatural overtones.\n\nThat this ancient custom might have inspired the Taoist priesthood to introduce it in their own rituals is not unlikely. The relationship between imperial sacrifices, Buddhist rituals, and Taoist practices is not an exception: the eclectic nature of Taoism has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208979, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 141, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "SYMBOLISM OF THE NEW LIGHT\n\n109\n\nIn the Taoist liturgy, however, even if historical influences were at play, they are not so easily detected. But it is worthwhile to investigate concrete examples to illustrate how cultural borrowings work and eventually contribute to mutual enrichment. I believe that traditions which isolate themselves from all others, tend to petrify and become uninspiring, whereas those which are open to extraneous influences, remain living faiths and increase their vitality.\n\nIn the concrete case-study at hand, the hypothesis of Christian influence on Taoism should not be seen as a purely academic exercise in fruitless speculation; even if a positive borrowing cannot be established, the analysis and comparison itself will lead to a deeper understanding of this archetypal religious phenomenon.\n\nLet us now investigate the hypothesis in detail. If Christian influences have been operative, the concrete Sitz-in-Leben is to be found in the Nestorian presence in T'ang China. The arrival and successes of this Ching-chiao (as Nestorianism is called in China) have been well established in several monographs.42 The best known studies were made by P. Y. Saeki who was aware of the probability of various influences at play during the T'ang dynasty. One shortcoming in Saeki's work, however, is that he is too eager to discover links of influence, esp. between Nestorianism and Buddhism. Still, his hypotheses should be taken seriously: Christian influence may well have been operative in the concrete forms of an originally Buddhist ritual; the Ullambana. The 7 times 7 days of celebration with the final ceremony on the 50th day reminds one too well of the Christian Pentecost. A simplified modern adaptation of this once grandiose liturgy still survives in the popular Chinese funeral rites: every 7th day after a person's death rituals are performed until the 7th week or 49th and 50th day.\n\nSaeki also discusses the probability of Nestorian influence on Taoism.43 His thesis has been more recently re-examined by a Chinese scholar Lo Hsiang-lin.44 The heart of the argument is as follows: in the biographies of Lü Tung-pin, a famous Taoist master of T'ang China (later on apotheosized as one of the Eight Immortals of Taoism), one finds a very strange text - 4 stanzas written in Chinese transliteration. Saeki's opinion is that these verses are either in Syriac or in Sanskrit. He states that the opinions of scholars are divided. Lo Hsiang-lin, on the other hand, does not mention the possibility of a Sanskrit origin, but opts for...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209306, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 209, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n195 \n\nTaoist heaven would be held on the seventh night after the death; but it is probable that these rites were more frequently combined with the rites of funeral night and conducted then. In most areas the most important rituals during the mourning period were the preparation for the return of the spirit of the deceased to visit his family, and, a little after this, the visit of the family to a spirit medium to consult the deceased to check that he was contented and comfortable.\n\n \nOn the twenty-first day early in the morning members of the immediately bereaved family would go to the grave, place new offerings there, and pay the family's last respects. (In Sheung Shui this rite was done on the third day after death). The family would then put on full mourning, which would not have been worn since the day of the burial, or the day the seventh day rituals were held. They would attend Taoist rituals in front of the temporary spirit tablet, thereafter take the tablet to a suitable spot, in some cases near a river, where it would be burnt. In some cases this was done within a ritual enclosure purified by the sons of the deceased, together with all the objects used in the various rituals, and with gifts of paper money and objects to the deceased and to other deceased family members. The family would, in many cases, then remove mourning, in some cases at a spot outside the village. The mourning would then be burnt. All mourners would put on new clothes which had been passed through the smoke of the fires. Led by the Taoist priest the family would return to the place where the temporary spirit tablet had been placed, now stripped and swept, and would assist the priest in the placing and worshipping of a new paper tablet to the deceased, after which new lucky papers would be pushed up, the ex-mourners would put on pieces of red tape or cloth to signify their final removal of mourning, and go to welcome their friends and relations in another meal prepared by the elders of the village.\n\n \nThis extremely condensed statement represents the basic ritual of a Punti village funeral. In Hakka villages customs differed substantially. Thus, for instance, the burial usually took place in such villages at dawn, and many of the family rituals, such as buying water, were correspondingly brought forward to the previous day, to before the main Taoist celebration. Again, Hakka custom demanded in many areas a daily visit to the grave throughout the mourning period whereas Punti custom demanded only a daily visit to the spirit tablet. In many other places similar divergences are to be noted. This note, therefore, represents only a very bare skeletal framework of rituals common to most Punti villages; it ignores the numerous intricate, but fixed and essential, minor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209969, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "206\n\nthe Dutch had arrived as a power in Asian waters. In their attacks on Cochin and Malacca the two relics there of the saint were lost.\n\nBut the missionary effort in Japan continued and the Macau fragment was taken there in 1619. However, persecution worsened and it was brought back to the territory shortly afterwards; it was popularly believed that its presence lessened the frequency of the terrible typhoons to which the coast of China was, and is, subject.\n\nThe relic was housed in Macau's famous St Paul's church, destroyed in a fire in the early 19th century and of which now only an impressive facade remains. Then it passed to the church of St. Joseph's seminary.\n\nIn 1952, on the 400th anniversary of Xavier's death it was taken to Malacca and there were celebrations there and throughout Malaysia. The last time the piece of bone left Macau was in 1965, when, at the request of Cardinal Francis Spellman, it was taken to Newark, New Jersey, where it was seen and venerated by more than 100,000 people.\n\nThe relic thereafter went back to its normal resting place in the seminary in Macau. However, soon afterwards Father Acquistapace was given charge of the dilapidated little chapel on Coloane, one of two small islands which with a peninsula form Macau. The relic is now kept at that church.\n\nDuring his decades of service in Asia as a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Father Acquistapace served in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Manila, Formosa and Macau. He spent much of his life teaching in technical schools. A man of immense good humour, he is delighted to find visitors interested in his relics.\n\nAlong with the fragment of bone of Xavier there are relics of 58 Japanese martyrs and 14 Vietnamese martyrs.\n\nThe Japanese perished in the brutal suppression of Christianity which took place in the first half of the 17th century. According to one historian: \"The descriptions of the ways in which the Christians of Japan were forced to meet their deaths rank among the most horrifying and degraded reading matter to be found anywhere.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209977, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 236, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "214\n\nand general merchant, who came to Hong Kong with his brothers when young. As the eldest, he controlled the family finances and the distribution of work. The second brother went on to Australia, and then returned to Hong Kong. The third brother was a small ship-builder, running his own sampan construction business near the old Kowloon City pier. The fourth brother was a policeman. The eldest Chan's son, my informant, succeeded him as manager of the temple on his death in 1925.\n\nDuring these years the temple's following had been steadily growing. It is reported that in the younger Chan's time, and before, over twenty villages of central and east Kowloon2 took a regular part in the religious celebrations conducted at the two temples. This represents a striking difference from the days, a century before, when the Goddess of Mercy shrine and temple were the private concerns of the small and unimportant Chu family of Tai Hom,\n\n3\n\nThis statement of interest is substantiated by the practices described to me by elders of villages in the area. Two managers, styled chik li (1) were provided by each village. Each year, some weeks before the main Kwun Yam festival, the chief manager called them together for a discussion as to whether the usual arrangements would be made. These consisted of chantings by nam mo lo (), the staging of the customary puppet shows for the four days and five nights usual in this region, and a dinner held in front of the temple the day after the festival. Upon agreement to proceed as usual, each village was allocated one or more subscription books, and the chik li or their helpers collected funds from those among their fellow villagers who wished to take part in the dinner and the general celebrations.\n\nThe chik li were not elected by the villagers: they seldom if ever were in the villages of this region. They came from among that body of working elders who managed the affairs of each village. They were either the elders themselves, or persons deputed by them. The Chairman of the body of chik li was selected through a procedure basically the same as that described for other temples and shrines in the Hong Kong region. All the village chik li gathered at the temple at a fixed day and hour. The divining blocks were cast an agreed number of times and the\n\n3", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210002, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 261, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "239\n\nscattered farms of various families. Towards the end of the Ming, because of the unsettled state of the times, these families decided to come together to form a fortified village with wall and moat. They employed a famous Fung Shui expert, Lai Po-i (*), to set out and purify the enclosure. He was mocked by some youths however, and became so angered that he flung down the bowl of water he was using in the purificatory rites and left. Things went wrong, and eventually the elders sought Lai Po-i out to beseech him to return to complete his work. This he refused to do, but instructed them to build a temple oriented to the north-east on the site where he had thrown down the bowl, and to lay out a road directly in front to a suitable point where the gate would be, and then to set out a village with that road site taken as the centre. This was done, and the village was set out as a square, with the temple in the centre of the back wall, directly facing the gate down the main street, in consequence.\n\nThe temple was dedicated to Hau Wong. The Sha Tin villagers believe that Hau Wong had been a refugee who had settled in Sha Tin somewhen before their ancestors arrived, who had farmed in the area and given advice to anyone who came to ask. After his death the residents continued to ask his spirit for advice, at the site of his hut. An exactly similar tale is told of Che Kung and the founding of his, the only other old temple in Sha Tin.\n\nIt seems clear that these two gods were of essentially local significance, and that they jointly presided over the fortunes of the valley. Before the fortification of Tai Wai it is likely that the temple to Hau Wong stood in the fields, like the Che Kung Temple, and that all the residents of the area worshipped there. After the Tai Wai villagers brought the god into the new temple in the village this area responsibility seems to have remained, although the village came more and more to regard the temple as their own special property. Certainly, Hau Wong, as well as the definitely communal Che Kung, is still invited to all Ta Tsiu celebrations in Sha Tin. Further, at the repair of the temple inside the village in 1864, for which a donation tablet is preserved, donations were received from most Sha Tin villages, and even from wealthy men in Cheung Sha Wan and Kowloon who had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210334, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 305, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "284\n\nCHOI CHI CHEUNG\n\n14\n\n13\n\ndefence. Thus, the 200 Hainanese were saved. He stayed in Vietnam for more than 40 years. He had a very good relationship with the French. He started many new businesses and expanded the old ones. Chinese and foreigners owed him more than a hundred million, but he just left and didn't ask (them to pay back). Within the 40 years, he helped and encouraged many people from his native place and his lineage, and he protected many Chinese in Vietnam. The French law was strict and the ignorant could be accused easily. However, they were released whenever he spoke out for them. Thus, all the Chinese in Vietnam felt very grateful to him and depended on him in many things. Moreover, he contributed a lot to the petitions presented to exempt the Associations(f) and the free cemeteries() from tax. These actions were all praised and well known.\n\nIn 1879, he was appointed by the China Merchants Steam Navigation Co.() to import rice into China (from Vietnam).1 Many famous diplomats, such as: Chung-hou( ), Kuo Sung-tao(#), Tseng Chi-tse(##), Shao yu-lien( ), Wang Chih-chun( 2), Hsieh Fu-cheng(# ), Lung Tien-yang(U), Huang Tsun-hsien(F) etc., wanted to know him, and relied on him as their host (when they passed through Vietnam).2 However, he was never arrogant, and he always treated them with great hospitality and respect.\n\nOn his 70th birthday, in 1888, his sons and grandsons celebrated it for him in Vietnam. Many officials and merchants came to the banquet. The French Government Offices(2), companies, schools, and mints(*) all raised flags to celebrate, and a holiday was given as if they were having their national celebration. At that time, the French Governor( t) awarded him a First Honoured Star(MSA) with a written citation.\" This excited the whole country, and everyone thought that it was a most honorific reward. However, he took it all casually.\n\nHe was filial and had a fraternal personality. The way he took care of his parents when living and at the time of their death was all according to the traditional ways. He lived with his brothers with fraternal love. He treated his nephews as if they were his sons. He liked to study, and even the old scholars could not equal what he wrote. Thus, his sons were well brought up, and succeeded in the official examinations.\" For himself, he, according to the Ch'ing regulations, donated money and got the title of Hua-ling-tao( = official ...)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210467, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "55 \n\nremoved in 1952 was coincidental). The 14th day of the 7th month was the day for remembering all those who at death had received no proper burial. Any seafaring community would be likely to know of many such, and like most Hong Kong Boat People, Kau Sai's fishermen marked the month of the 'Hungry Ghosts' with ceremonies of exorcism, both privately on the junks and publicly in the temple. The day of the Moon Festival (the 15th day of the 8th month) was the next occasion for making family offerings in the temple, and on the Double Ninth came the second of the annual dates for visiting the family graves.\n\nOn the 10th day of the 10th month a public offering of pork (and/or fish) was made to Shui Shing Ye, whose image stood next to that of Hung Shing Kung in the temple, and after that came the celebration of the winter solstice (fixed, of course, by the solar calendar, like Ch'ing Ming, but falling usually in the eleventh month). Finally, on the 15th day of the 12th month a pig was slaughtered and offered in the temple on behalf of the community as a whole in public thanksgiving for the successful completion of another year before the preparations for the New Year ceremonies once again got under way.\n\nOnly four of these ritual occasions were publicly observed in the sense that the offerings made and ceremonies performed were provided at joint expense and on behalf of the village as a whole. The rest were private, that is family celebrations, taking place on or about the same dates but quite independently. The four public occasions were the festivals of two gods of the local temple, Hung Shing Kung (13th of 2nd month) and Shui Shing Ye (10th of 10th month), the exorcism of the Hungry Ghosts (14th of 7th month) and the general thanksgiving at the end of the year (15th of 12th month). By far the most spectacular of these was the festival for Hung Shing Kung, for which a group of priests was always engaged to carry out the religious ceremonies and an opera troupe performed plays on five consecutive nights and four days. The organisation of this festival, which involved the collection and disbursement of well over 10,000 Hong Kong dollars each year, was much the most important single joint activity in Kau Sai.\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210468, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "56\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nThe New Year celebrations were in a class of their own. Essentially private, family performances they yet had a public aspect in that they included a jointly observed taboo upon junk movements. From noon on the 30th day of the 12th month until a selected auspicious day in the New Year the junks might not move from their moorings. On the selected lucky day and hour all junks made at least a token move to the accompaniment of a vast noise of firecrackers, after which the prohibition was lifted. Until then all water traffic had to be carried on by sampan alone,\n\nPersonal Rhythms: the Life Cycle\n\nIn addition to the daily, monthly, seasonal and annual routines that every member of a community experiences more or less at the same time, there are those other rhythmic patterns of social behaviour also experienced by all, but separately: these are the patterns of the life cycle. Birth (and birthdays), entry into adulthood, marriage, entry into parenthood, death, are the common human experiences that many people mark with special observances. Most of the life cycle rituals common among Cantonese in Hong Kong were also practised by the fishermen of Kau Sai, though some, notably weddings, had idiosyncratic features. Briefly, they comprised, a 'coming out' ceremony for babies who had completed the first month of life, a day which marked also the end of ritual pollution for the mother and her junk; a ceremony to mark the entry into adulthood which was held on the eve of the very much more elaborate ceremonies of marriage and more or less assimilated into them; and the rituals following death, which were identical with those of the landsmen with the one exception that the Kau Sai fishermen, like most traditional Boat People in Hong Kong, represented their dead not in tablets of the classical Chinese sort set up in ancestral halls but always in brightly coloured images which were housed in small shrines set into the port sides of their junks.\n\n4. THE RHYTHMS OF MOBILITY: KAU SAI IN ITS\n\n\"TERRITORY\"\n\nIn chapter 3 the emphasis was upon the temporal rhythms of\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210544, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "132\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\nwhole family sat down to enjoy what Hsu describes as a sumptuous meal.\"\n\n50\n\nThe Roman counterpart of the Ch'ing Ming is the parentalia. This was a public event occupying a full nine days of the Roman calendar, the thirteenth through the twenty-first of February. As the name itself suggests, it was devoted to the propitiation of one's parents in particular, but Ovid's circumstantial description of the celebration in the Fasti (2.533-570), makes it clear that it extended to the ascendants in general. During this period, when the spirits were again believed to roam freely, the temples were closed, the magistrates laid aside the insignia of their offices, and it was forbidden to marry. On the last day, which was styled the feralia, the entire populace went out to lay offerings before the graves and to banquet with their dead. These meals could be fully as elaborate as the one in which Hsu participated at West Town, but equally, they could be as simple as those which Ahern reports in Ch'i-nan. She remarks that \"foods presented at the graves, though potentially edible, are not soaked, seasoned, or cooked; most of them are dry and unpalatable.\"' At the feralia, Ovid says (Fasti 2.537-539) that \"a tile wreathed with votive garlands, a sprinkling of corn, a few grains of salt, bread soaked in pure wine, and loose violets - these are offerings enough.”\n\n52\n\n——\n\nDespite certain procedural differences, the similarity in intent of the two ghost festivals on the one hand, and the Ch'ing Ming and the parentalia on the other, should be readily apparent. These are not by any means, however, the only ritual occasions on which the living attend to the dead in either community. Grave offerings, for example, are regularly to be observed during the Ch'ung Yang festival in the autumn, while generous offerings are normally set before the ancestral tablets on the death-day anniversaries of those ancestors who are personally remembered by at least one member of the family. Birthdays and death-days were usually commemorated by the Romans with sacrifices at the tomb, which were visited yet again at the rosalia and the violaria, the festivals of roses and violets respectively. These took place not on a fixed day but at any time during May or June, the months when these flowers bloom in the Mediterranean basin. This hints at the antiquity of the belief that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210708, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "42 \n\nWALTER GREENWOOD \n\nsaying he expected a C.M.G. and this I believe dished his chances. In any case I submit that it is highly improper for a Government pensioner, who has been knighted, to publish such a statement and I think Sir Edward Ackroyd should be called upon for an explanation through the Colonial Office\". It may be that if Francis had not made his protest the Government would have had second thoughts. But as the China Mail observed it was not in his nature to allow the neglect to pass unnoticed. The handsome, paltry, historical silver inkstand was ordered to be returned to the Crown Agents to be sold for the benefit of the Colony.\n\nFrancis was prominent in public affairs in a number of respects in addition to those already mentioned. To take a few examples. He was on the committees formed to organise the celebration of the Queen's Golden and Diamond Jubilees. As to the former he favoured it being marked by a contribution to the British Indian and Colonial Institute, which had the support of the Royal Family, but in the end the committee decided on a statue which is now in Victoria Park. On the latter occasion he was awarded the Governor's Jubilee medal for his services. He was also on the Hong Kong Golden Jubilee committee. He attended a number of the protest meetings which were a feature of life in Hong Kong, and usually had something to say. His last public appointment was as Chairman of the Food Supply Commission in 1900. He had a number of business interests which, presumably, were not regarded as inconsistent with his status as a practising member of the Bar. The most interesting relate to Borneo and newspapers. In 1889 he paid an extended visit to Borneo and whilst there purchased the island of Balambangan. His main interest was in the prospects for growing tobacco. Whilst in Borneo he \"took the trouble to learn all about it” and of course lectured about it on his return. On the death of Fraser Smith in 1895 he acquired an interest in the Daily Telegraph which he retained until 1900. He was said to have directed the policy of the newspaper during that period. It was also said in an obituary that he was proprietor of the China Mail for a time.\n\nHe was a member of many clubs and societies. He was a founder member of the Jockey Club and secretary of its first rule committee. He took a prominent part in disputes between the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211958, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 373, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "348\n\nD. The Taoist Priests and Their Rites\n\nThe Taoist priests who performed the rites in this festival were hired on a contract basis. More than ten of them were involved, among whom four were in a senior position. The oldest of the four, Mr. Lam Pui, born before 1910, was from the New Territories. Another, Mr. Jeung Hoi, was from a village just across the present Chinese border. Mr. Lam Choi was probably from the New Territories too. Both were born about 1920. These three had been active as ritual experts in the area since when they were young, and had been in leading positions at least in the last few decades. The four had all performed in the 1965 celebration of the Kam Tin jiu festival. The other senior priest, Mr. Chan Gau, was from Sa Jeng in the western area of Bao'an county. He had come to Hong Kong more than ten years ago and since then has worked in the New Territories. Mr. Leung Tung, though not a priest by profession, had been working with this group of priests as a musician, and had trained in an early stage of his career in ceremonial music bands in the Bak Bin villages. Chan Gau, Jeung Hoi and Lam Pui were the partners who undertook to provide the priestly services on this occasion, and the other members of the team were hired to help.\n\nBesides the three-times daily Scripture chanting and small processions to make offerings at different spots, the priests performed about 20 rites in the festival. About ten of them were more elaborate and were considered to be the main ones.\n\nEach of the four senior priests took the leading role in different rites. Mr. Lam Pui, being the oldest and the most knowledgeable, acted as the high priest in most of the main rites, including the Opening Rite, the Purification of the Ritual Area, the Posting of the Placard, the Escort of the Holy Ones, and the Great Offering to Ghosts. Mr. Chan Gau, being younger and good at acrobatic feats, took care of the more martial rituals: the martial arts section of the Purification of the Ritual Area, and Going through the Gates of Life and Death, and headed the team for the Dipper Rite. Mr. Jeung Hoi acted as the main priest in some of the other important rites. Mr. Lam Choi, partly because he was not one of the partners, played secondary roles. The morning, noon-time, and afternoon Scripture chanting and offerings were performed by the more junior members of the team, as were the short concluding rites on the last day.\n\n60\n\nAlthough the rites differ one from another, there were many elements", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212108, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 50, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "27\n\nH. Studies on Jiao festivals in Mainland China & Taiwan\n\nOne of the most striking indicators of the revival of the traditional religious activities which were labeled as \"feudal superstition\" and prohibited in China after 1949 is the reappearance of the large scale Jiao festival in southern China. According to Dean, small scale religious activities were secretly practised by some small villages in Fujian during the Cultural Revolution. Large scale Jiao celebrations were seen in many parts of southern China only after 1980, the decade following the fall of the \"gang of four.\" Dean's study in Fujian is one of the pioneering studies of the revival of Jiao festivals in mainland China. In his paper Dean asked whether or not the revival of Jiao festivals will lead to the restoration of local tradition and eventually encourage local autonomy. This, according to Dean, \"only time will tell.\"\n\nRecords of Jiao festivals on the mainland are very limited but Jiao festivals in Taiwan have been widely studied since the 1960s. One of the earliest systematic studies is Liu Zhi-wan's ethnographical account of the 1963 Jiao festival in Song Shan, Taipei. Though severely criticized by Li, the study successfully drew the attention of many scholars to the study of such festivals. Besides descriptive ethnography, two approaches should be mentioned here. One looks at the Jiao festival from its religious and symbolic significance. Li Xian-zhang pointed out in 1968 that the Jiao in ancient China was a \"rite of transition.\" Saso suggested that the Jiao is a rite of cosmic renewal closely related to the theory of Yin and Yang. He wrote \"[Jiao] is to restore Yang, that is, life, light, and blessing, to its pristine state of growth, and to expel the forces of Yin, darkness, evil, and death.\" Saso's theory was adopted by many scholars to define the Jiao festival. For instance, Ward wrote that objectives of the Jiao festival are the wiping away of evil, the restoration of peace, and the renewal of life for the entire population and of a sizable group of villages.\n\nAnother approach studies the festival from its social aspects. It focuses on the organizing community's internal structure and its relationship with a larger society. Okada's studies on \"religious area\" were done in the 1930s. They argue that the religious area is an area in which people interact through common religious activities which focus on a temple or a religious object. A religious area is also a sphere of social life which may coincide with marketing or marriage areas. The festival is seen as a mechanism to consolidate or to re-confirm\n\n14", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213284, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 106, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "86\n\nIn England between 1697 and 1851, a tax on windows was imposed. Consequently, many were blocked up. For different reasons, Chinese living in villages in the New Territories also consider carefully before cutting a hole through a wall to construct another window or door. These are viewed as 'noses' and 'mouths'. An opening can admit evil influences and bring sickness or death. Their position, size and proportions are important. So is the way they open and swing.\n\nIn the flat in the case study the Chinese amah (maid) was frequently sick. 'Move the gas cooker,' the lady of the house was instructed. 'It is not good for the cooker to face the door.' After this was done, although it could have been coincidence, the amah said her health improved. She had faith that if the cooker was moved she would feel better. Afterwards, she assured the author she did.\n\nWith Chinese culture embracing so many aspects of the universe and influencing daily life, aesthetics have always been considered important. Door gods, for example, sometimes adorn entrances to ward off evil. In turn, colour and lighting affect both mind and wellbeing. If a person prefers dark colours, then, to balance, they should choose patterns that have light backgrounds. Colour and beauty are meant to complement.\n\nColour symbolism has been linked to the Five Elements, the forces of nature (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water), since the fourth century BC. These are not just looked upon as five kinds of fundamental matter but more as five fundamental processes. Fire, for instance, is linked to red. Not only does it look good but it protects the wearer from evil (Baker, 1981:154). For example, the talismanic red spot on the white headdress of a mourner at a funeral service; worn in the nature of an amulet, red (often vermillion) attracts good fortune. It is a yang colour: the colour for weddings and celebrations. It signifies joy, festivities, virtue and sincerity. Yet to have red paint on the end of a bamboo pole, on which the washing is hung high above the street, is not considered appropriate. It could fall and kill. Red symbolises blood.\n\nRegarding the other four primary colours which are linked to the Five Elements. Yellow (emblematic of earth), a natural and loyal colour of old China was sacred to the emperor. It is the colour of the garments of Taoist priests. It signifies longevity and is the colour for burying the dead. Geomantic blessings and charms, to ward off evil influences, are frequently written or painted on yellow paper representing the earth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213800, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "123\n\nbis being implication and subsequent death. One version says that as a result of 'pollution' by pregnancy of which his mother was unaware the bamboo horse on which he rode failed, causing a half-day delay in his arrival at court. As a result the Emperor was convinced of accusations that he had rebellious migntions. The other version, in a rather obscute passage, is that some method was devised by his enemies at court to show his magical power to the Emperor. The method worked and the Emperor was convinced by the accusation by his enemies. The Emperor ordered destruction of the fengshui of the lineage. Upon his return home he died suddenly. According to genealogy the Emperor wept upon hearing about bis death and ordered execution of the official responsible for the destruction of the Cheng's fengshui. The story bears striking similarity to stories in Faute op cup 229, about Huo Zhen and his sister Wu.\n\nL\n\n2. Those are Fa Xuan in the 10th generation, Wan Yi Lang, Wan Er Lang, Fa Xing, Xian Yi Lang, Ning Yi Lang to Ning Wu Lang, and a Nian San Lang in the 12th generation, Gao Yi(1) Lang to Gao San(3) Lang, Zheng Si(4) Lang, Qian Wu(5) Lang, and Zheng Shi(10) Lang in the 13th generation, Fa Tang, Tong San(3) Lang, Pin San Lang and Fa Wen in the 14th generation.\n\nAccording to the genealogy his father died soon after arrival in the county and his young age was the reason given for an important event in the history of the family.\n\n**Reproduced in Sin, op cit, plate 4**\n\n\"The same ancestors were traced to by the Chens of Lok Keng.\n\n76 In the same interview he also said: 1312 generations. I did not ask about the apparent discrepancy.\n\nJH\n\nIN\n\nIn a telephone conversation with the Hakka Buddhist funeral ritual expert Mr. Zhang on 5th March 1991, JH learned that Mr. Miao died years ago. His assistant Mr. Zheng Tangsheng moved to Hong Kong, lived in Tai Po, and died before Mr. Miao.\n\nTelephone conversation 5th March 1991\n\nZhang Zupu, Chonghua Juhu Lusuo 1993, reprinted from Zhongyuan Zazhi 1980.\n\n10. The document reproduced in ZEILS indicates that a new name given to a troubled child in the rite does not resemble the ordination names seen in genealogies.\n\n* The author does not explain the meaning of \"faona\", \"old house\". Some of them were probably a kind of ancestral hall as he mentioned that money was collected from different branches for the celebration and where there was a wealthy ancestral trust money can be drawn for that purpose. See also a reference later to Nelson's article about a kind of ancestral hall known as \"shengung\".\n\n*2 Voc, 3, under Ankong\n\n14\n\nUntitled volume by Guangdong Sheng Xiju Yanjiu She, prefaced 1980, pp. 132-138.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215305, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "30\n\nspring within the wider New Year duration.\" At Li Chun ritual acts signalled various agricultural tasks. The She festival was more timely in relation to actual agrarian operations starting up at this season, but rituals did not directly depict the cultivation of the earth.\n\nShamanistic activities were common at several ritual celebrations in the area under scrutiny here. A chronicler from Hanzhou Magistracy in Hanyang Prefecture says that the people along the Jiang and the Han18 love wu sorcerers and regard demons as important.19 Singing, dancing and drumming wu and xi contributed to the efficacy of the rituals in that they summoned the shen spirits. The mention here of both wu and xi is best understood as indicating that the shamanistic acts were performed by officiants recruited from both genders—but we cannot be sure. What kind of shen spirits were invited by their activities is, again, not clear. If in the singular, the word might refer to the She, if in the plural, it might have been spirits in general, or, perhaps, the spirits of the dead. We have seen above that sometimes the She was connoted with death and the dead. Invoking and inviting the dead—should that be the correct understanding—would then, no doubt, have had further agricultural connotations.20\n\nWhat speaks in favour of the former interpretation is a note deriving from Yiyang Magistracy (in Changsha Prefecture), but which actually refers to a practice of the third day of the third moon, a day called Shang Si E or 'Upper Si'. On this day there were splendid processions in the country villages by the She altars where people sacrificed to the du shen 'the earth spirit(s)'. Droning drums were prominent instruments in these processions. This was called qi nian—'to pray for the year'.21 A similar report, already mentioned and referring to the same day, is found in the records of Yingshan where it is said that people worshipped the She by jiao libations.\n\n17\n\nWe may note that there was another occasion for celebrating the\n\nAijmer 2002, Chapter. 15.\n\n18 Hanzhou is situated by the confluence of the River Yangzi (the Jiang) and the River Han.\n\n19 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1130: 風俗考 1b\n\n20 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a\n\n21 益陽縣志. 1874. 卷 24b.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215311, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "36\n\nhere were the main social occasions at this time of the year when both rustic and urban people tried to benefit from the seasonal life forces of Nature.\n\nThe She Day was a fairly complex affair when people visited what appears to have been special public altars, to worship by making offerings of meat and wine. What these altars devoted to the She were like, we cannot know for sure. Probably they were not too different from their latter day counterparts made of concrete.44 What deity was the She? Sometimes the She was combined with the Ji into a more complex phenomenon. Demotically it seems likely that this agricultural earth god was conceived as one being. Sometimes it was male and had a female companion, perhaps a wife.45 At this point it seems advisable to consult what Sinology has to say.\n\n46\n\nDerk Bodde's studies of festivals in early China are helpful here. He describes how in the days of the two consecutive Han dynasties (206 BC-AD 220) the She and the Ji were thought of as a pair presiding over the country with 'sub-versions' presiding in a corresponding way hierarchically in every single administrative unit in the realm. The cult of the She Ji was a State ritual at the centre of the polity, in the hands of the Emperor in the capital and handled by his administrators and officials in the periphery. This cult of the She, or She Ji, can be traced back to ancient and even into archaic China, and it appears to be a very old institution in Chinese public life. Even in the pre-Han period of contending fiefdoms under the umbrella of a ritually defined Imperial dominance, the She or She Ji was—if seen as in unity—a deity that not only had a reference to agriculture and harvests but, furthermore, to death; there was an intimate connection between the altar of the She and the Imperial ‘ancestral temple.' It has been noted that in these ancient offerings the presentations to the altar was of raw meat, whereas the ancestors received food that had been cooked.47\n\nLooking into medieval China we find that the worship of the She\n\n44 In this the She is strikingly similar to the Stove God, prominent at the celebration of Little New Year in the region; see Aijmer 2001: Chapter 4.\n\n45 Bodde 1975: 56, 252; see also Ch'ü 1972: 31.\n\n46 Chavannes 1969: 507, 516, 519.\n\n47 Yang 1969: 96-99; Faure 1986: 141.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215312, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "37\n\nor She Ji was still a political manifestation up through the Tang (618-907) and the Song (960-1260) dynasties, articulating neighbourhood and local belonging. In the Ming (1368-1644) period of early modern China, government regulations required that every hundred households maintain one She shrine and the ceremony conducted there should include the slaughtering of animals. It was then a day of feasting.4\n\n48\n\nThere is reason for caution here. While it cannot be denied that the ancient rituals of the remote Zhou dynasty share something with those performed more than two thousand years after in late Imperial China, the similarities must be deemed to be no more than a certain family resemblance. There is no reason to assume that the late counterparts of pristine sacrifices were caused by a true structural continuity through the ages. Forms are similar, so are the offerings of meat and wine, and a political component was permanently involved; but having recognized this, we must also remember all those agrarian, religious, social and political changes that have had such a profound impact on life in China in these millennia. Whatever ideas and notions that informed the rites of ancient and early China, these must have been modified and transformed in the course of these two thousand years of history. Still, these resemblances over the millennia continue to fascinate.\n\nThe observation that the archaic links between the cults of the She and the dead re-appear in contemporary rituals in southern China, invites some further speculation. If death was an essential semantic component in the ancient notion of the She, a robust structure of meaning may well have survived—or been generated and generated again—despite ever changing symbolic environments; if it was true that the She could not be separated from the dead, or, possibly, was a manifestation of collective death, this close connotation [death<>vegetative force] may have been a presupposition for any ritual activity concerned with the earth and its generative power.\n\nWhat can be said here, in our present context, is that in some places in the central Yangzi valley there were visits to the graves of the dead in connection with the celebration of the She. The rituals to the agricultural god of the soil solicited blessings for the coming season by offerings and prayers which were sent in a downward direction to reach\n\n48 Aijmer 1991: 191-92.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215314, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "39\n\nif they were already engaged to be married, to exchange gifts with their future affinal relatives. Flower Dawn was a day which marked young girls' attainment of womanhood. Ears were pierced for wearing jewellery and from this day, marking the same shift, adolescent women let their hair grow long to announce their entry into the world of female concerns.\n\nEarly spring in the plains and hills of Hubei and Hunan was a period of beginnings and anticipations. The return of life force in Nature was a process drawing from symbolic codes and involving various rituals, as well as giving rise to a sequence of practical concerns in the mundane work in the rice fields. It is in these spring days that we find the celebration of two different festivals, each in its own way attuned to the season: the festivals can be seen as mutually complementary, the two handling different dimensions of the same world.\n\nThe ritual activities on this day reflected a social grammar of reciprocity in which gifts—meat and wine—were expected to generate a response from the She. The counter-gift would be an abundance of rice in the fields in late summer. A cognate ritual procedure would be staged some weeks later, but this time the rites would engage the mortal remains of the individual dead and the combinations of ancestral graves that formed the stock of memorabilia of particular lineages. These rituals would aim at a similarly beneficial effect on the coming crops, but would also be forward-looking, inviting the dead to return to the living in early summer.\n\nThe She Day was celebrated on a date calculated according to the sun's movement through the celestial zodiac, a procedure providing a relatively stable seasonal appearance. Its ritual liturgy related the occasion to the yin cosmic principle and stressed a downward direction, further associated with female forces, darkness and death. It is interesting that this festival of clear yin associations was calculated in accordance with the movement of the sun, the foremost exposition of the male, life-giving and celestial cosmic principle of yang. The festival appeared on the first wu day after the Li Chun day. Wu is, as already mentioned, the seventh of the 'Earthly Branches,' which, apart from being used to represent cyclical time, was associated with the midday hour and the southerly direction. It seems that a conventional calendar discourse, by the use of the wu branch, tied celestial progress", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215315, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "40\n\nto a state of the earth. The same paradox is also apparent in the celebration of the other seasonal festival, the Flower Dawn with its emphasis on an upward yang direction. The latter festival was observed according to the lunar calendar, and so relating to the main yin manifestation in Heaven, the moon. To intensify this sense of femininity it was celebrated under the full moon of the second lunary. The second moon, being of an even number, also has female associations.\n\nThe Flower Dawn day highlighted the awakening Nature and the end of the cold season's hibernation. It celebrated arousal and the drawing out of life from the underground in an upward direction. It was a day to be spent in the open with picnics in 'the wilderness', away from built-up areas. This was in contrast to the centripetal She celebrations, which were focused on one particular, centrally located altar. Flower Dawn was a day of contesting games, food, and kite flying. Female sexuality was one main theme of the festival, people following old conventions as to the coming of age of young women, their betrothals, and coming marriages.\n\nThe latter point is somewhat puzzling. The period for betrothals of young people, and also marriages, started generally at, or after, the Chong Yang festival on the ninth day of the ninth moon, the culmination of the wedding season being on New Year's Day and around that time. This autumnal period was the social season that followed after the harvest of rice when the fields were left fallow and the life force of Nature withdrew into the ground.49\n\nIt seems then as if the Flower Dawn was a spring alternative for the celebration of relations of affinity. Both She Day and Flower Dawn appeared in a period of the year that saw a seasonal near-balance of the cosmic forces of yin and yang—complete at the Spring Equinox.50 Yin had now started to wane and yang was growing into dominance. In the world of death, the deceased in their yin guise in the graves were growing in ritual importance, while the dead in their yang semblance, as celestial phenomena and manifest in the form of ancestral tablets, were coming out of focus. These two festivals each explored one dimension of Nature's seasonal balance:\n\n49 The autumnal equinox gave towards the end of the year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215607, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 384, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "334\n\ncremation after a few years in a coffin grave. This paper concentrates on columbaria in municipal cemeteries in Hong Kong, and contrasts the conservative designs of the public sector with the more expressive solutions of private providers. It contains the statistics about numbers of 'cremains' stored in niche walls and columbaria that I had obtained from cemetery managers, whose co-operation was invaluable. The statistics should be regarded as indicative rather than precise.\n\nDeath has to be planned for as much as life. Storing the dead is a sensitive issue, for the family as well as the state. The worldwide story of columbaria through the ages is one waiting to be told, although sporadic information is to be found in the key texts on cemetery history such as James Curl's A Celebration of Death (1993) and Silent Cities (K.T. Jackson and C.J. Vergara, 1989). Columbaria pose an intriguing challenge to contemporary architects and some of the resulting designs can make for striking and imposing contemporary landscape artefacts. Compared with cemeteries, columbaria are much more focused and inward looking. Cemeteries have the advantage of being outdoors, with all the distractions of the fresh air, the sky, distant views, maybe trees and even some landscaping - though this is rare in Hong Kong, an exception being sections of the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley. Landscaping was a fundamental part of the design of new private cemeteries that I visited in Guangzhou.\n\nHow will cyberspace supplement and perhaps supplant the material memorial space of cemeteries and columbaria? Cemetery managers I interviewed in Guangzhou were already thinking about this.\n\nTeather, E.K. (1998). Themes from complex landscapes: Chinese cemeteries and columbaria in Hong Kong, Australian Geographical Studies 36(1): 21-36.\n\nIn this paper, I tried to break away from the straightforward description and painstaking attempt to understand the social and belief systems that underpin cemetery layout and ritual. I tried to capture a little of the contrasting landscapes, symbolisms and moods of four of Hong Kong's cemeteries: Diamond Hill Urn Cemetery (1931); Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery (1915); sprawling Sandy Ridge Cemetery on the border with Guangdong Province (1950); and St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Lai Chi Kok (1946).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]